Some moonlight was filtering through the trees and in the window, bathing the room in semi-visibility. He was sleeping on his back, naked, on top of the blankets, possibly because the room was nice and warm from the radiator, or maybe he was still aglow from fucking his teenager.

Sometimes I think stupidity is contagious. I was so used to Turner doing dumbass things that I forgot he was a professional. An asshole, an idiot, but a professional. Which meant don’t underestimate him. Which meant you had to expect anything could happen. You had to be ready for a snoring man to suddenly whip an arm out at you and knock you over against the wall, and then come diving toward you like a linebacker going for the quarterback.

He buried his head in my chest and pinned me to the wall and threw some punches into my ribs and stomach and I batted him alongside his head with the Browning, caught some ear and got some blood going, and he stopped pummeling for a second and in that second must’ve realized I had his gun, or anyway a gun, and both his hands went for my gun arm, one hand around my wrist, the other catching me between shoulder and arm, his nails long and cutting the flesh of my wrist, a thumb digging up under into my armpit, and with his two hands he tried for a while to see if he couldn’t convince my right arm to abandon my body.

But I still had a left hand, and with it I grabbed a handful of wilted, exposed balls and squeezed and squeezed some more and twisted too and he released his grip on my arm and opened his mouth to scream but I put him to sleep with another whap on the head with the Browning before the scream got going.